Morales, Ambrosio
Morales, Ambrosio
Spanish historian, b. at Cordova, 1513; d. in 1591. After his studies at the University of Salamanca and Alcalá, he took Holy orders. Soon he was elected to the chair of Belles-Lettres at Alcalá. In 1574 he was appointed chronicler of Castile and commissioned to continue Florián de Ocampo’s “Crónica General de España”. This he brought down, after ten years of labour on it, to the date of the union of Castile and Leon under Ferdinand I. His pupil Sandoval continued it down to 1079. While he exhibits more talent and a better training than his predecessor Ocampo, Morales still proves to be on the whole an old-time chronicler, and manifests little tendency to react upon his facts, correlate cause and effect, or philosophize in any way. His style is rather wearisome. See the “Crónica general de España, prosiguiendo adelante los cinco libros que el Maestro Florian Docampo, Coronista del Emperador D. Carlos V dexó escritos” (Alcalá, 1574, 3 vols., and see also the ed. of Madrid, 1791-2). Other writings of Morales are “De las antigüedades de las ciudades de España”; and the “Viaje por orden del Rey D. Felipe II etc.”
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Memorias de la Academia Española, VIII, 285 sqq.
J.D.M. FORD Transcribed by Anthony J. Stokes
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XCopyright © 1911 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, October 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Morales, Ambrosio
a learned Spanish Dominican, the best authority on early Spanish history, was born at Cordova in 1513. His parents and relatives were people eminent in literary circles, and Ambrosio enjoyed all the advantages his country could afford him. One of his uncles, Fernan Perez de Oliva, who was a professor of philosophy and theology at Salamanca, took a prominent part in his education, and greatly influenced his tendency to theological study. He was also indebted to Juan de Medina and to Meichior Cano, two great writers and eloquent professors of divinity of that time, the former at Alcala, the latter at Salamanca, where he was the great antagonist of his eminent colleague Bartholomeo Carranza, and a still greater opponent of the Jesuits. This Cano, or Cansus, is the author of the excellent treatise De Locis Theologicis, and was a great reformer of the schools, from which he banished many futile and absurd questions. While yet a youth Morales produced a translation of the Pinax or Table of Cebes. But religious enthusiasm arose far above all his literary aspirations, and pervaded all his actions. At the age of nineteen Morales became a Jeronvmite, when, his religious fervor being no longer controllable, in order to secure himself against temptation, he attempted to follow the precedent of Origen. The excruciating pain inseparable from this self- mutilation drew from him a shriek which brought a brother monk to his cell in time to give him effectual relief. In order to obtain a papal dispensation for his conduct, he set out for Rome, but fell into the sea, and was saved, according to his own account, by a miracle. Considering this accident as a warning not to proceed, he joined his friends at court, and lived thenceforward as a secular priest. After the death of his father he became a professor at Alcala, where he had, among others, Guevara, Chacon, Sandoval, and the first Don Juan of Austria, among his pupils. He sustained the high literary credit of his family by his investigations into the antiquities of Spain. He also devoted himself to belles-lettres, and did much to cultivate among the Spanish of his day a taste for literature. His services were recognised at court, and he was made historiographer to Philip II, king of Spain. Morales died in 1590. He was the author of several works on the secular as well as religious history and antiquities of Spain; but his extreme credulity greatly deteriorates the value of his writings. See Bouterweck, Hist. of Spanish Lit. (see Index); Ticknor, Hist. of Spanish Lit. 3:129.